Food behind bars
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Does being a foreigner entitle one to a special diet in Indian prisons? LINA MATHIAS examines the controversy in Maharashtra.
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AFP
FOOD, in the confines of jail, takes on a more basic and urgent quality than it does outside. Two writ petitions — one on behalf of foreign undertrials asking that nutritional experts be directed to recommend a modified diet for them and another asking that experts review the existing diet and recommend modifications based on physical needs of all prisoners regardless of their place of origin — have just got an interim order from the Bombay High Court.
The issue of whether foreign prisoners need a different kind of diet based on their physical and health needs and on the amount of spice in their food, has a complicated bureaucratic history in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra Prisons (Diet for Prisoners) Rules, 1970, prescribe the diet for prisoners who do not maintain themselves. On October 7, 1999, the State Home Department issued a notification for a special modified diet for foreign prisoners. This was based on the recommendations of the Medical Officer and the physical constitution and requirement of the foreigners after they approached the HC saying that the scale for Indian prisoners was inadequate for them. This gave them less spices and provided them with milk, bread, eggs, potatoes and bananas.
Then on November 14, 2003, a notification discontinued the special diet. In the petition filed on behalf of Leon Johannes De Vries, South African (lodged in Mumbai Central Prison) and Helen Deslon Gees, Mauritian (lodged in Mumbai District Women's Jail), advocate Monica Sakhrani lists the reasons why the foreigners are aggrieved.
"Earlier foreign prisoners were permitted to supplement their diet with food items such as biscuits, fresh fruits, milk powder, cereals with permission from the trial courts. In 2003, the jail authorities requested the trial courts to stop granting this permission on the ground that it led to administrative problems and that these items were available in the jail canteen. But most of these food articles are either unavailable in the jail canteens or are of inferior quality. Now they cannot even supplement their diet from their own resources. Soon after came the withdrawal of the special diet," she says. Also, before withdrawing the special items, the Chief Medical Officer was not consulted despite the fact that the earlier scale was based on his recommendations.
Most foreign nationals in Maharashtra's jails are being tried for offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, which provides for stringent conditions of bail, says the petition. Since most cannot furnish bail even when granted it, they remain undertrial prisoners for several years, as there are only two Special Courts constituted under the Act in Mumbai. Thus in the long run, the adverse impact of the inadequate and insufficient diet would have a lasting effect on the health of the undertrial. It also wants them to be permitted to supplement their diet at their own cost if they can afford it, as laid down in Rule 14 (ii) of the 1970 Rules including procuring food articles from outside as used to be allowed formerly.
However, while the special diet has been withdrawn, foreigners continue to get a higher quantity of the items presently given as compared to their Indian counterparts.(See Box)
In the petition filed later on behalf of the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) an NGO, advocate Mihir Desai pointed out that the rules provide for different scales of diets as may be required by particular physical and health requirements. Rule 16 provides that a foreigner, not accustomed to the diet scales, may be given a modified diet as recommended by the Medical Officer. No different scale for food for foreign prisoners was explicitly provided for.
CEHAT's plea is that the diet scales ought to be restructured after considering physique, health status and special needs that would include diseases like diabetes and allergies. New diet scales that ensure a proper balanced diet to each prisoner must be prepared. Desai also points to the inferior quality of food items in the jail canteens but says that what the prisoner purchases or gets from family and friends should be over and above that provided by the jail. "`Foreigners' is a term that includes people from many countries. The nutritional needs of a person from the U.S. or Europe would differ from someone from Tanzania or South Africa. A person from Bangladesh or China would have other needs. Further differences within each nationality cannot be ruled out. Thus merely classifying prisoners merely into Indians and foreigners to decide the diet scale, is not a reasonable classification," argues Desai.
The petition adds, "India being a diverse country, with diverse food habits, there may be diverse needs among the Indian inmates too. The petitioner states that the mere fact of being a foreigner cannot entitle a prisoner to a superior diet. Similarly, the mere fact of being an Indian is not an adequate ground for abandoning an Indian with special nutritional needs to a routine diet prescribed for Indians."
The Maharashtra Prison Manual minutely details diet scales over eight pages. It ranges from Sunday and Republic Day supplies to those for prisoners fasting for religious reasons and goes into minute differentiations between diets for men, women, juveniles, pregnant women, those sentenced to simple imprisonment, light, medium and hard labour, those sentenced to death and so on.
Justices A.P. Shah and Abhay Oka in their order on the two petitions have appointed Kinninge, D.I.G. (Prisons), Dr. Bharati R.M., J.J. Hospital and Dr. Veena Vardi, Coordinator of P.G. Diploma in Dietetics and Applied Nutritions, Nirmala Niketan College of Home Science to submit their report by by May 30,2004. They will have to examine the diet of the foreign prisoners and Indian prisoners as were prevailing prior to the impugned notification and after looking into all the facts and circumstances recommend a nutritious and wholesome diet to be provided to the foreign prisoners and Indian prisoners.
Going by the traditions of bureaucratic practice, that will only be the beginning of another struggle to implement the report.
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